WIGGINS HAD AIDS, REPORT SAYS

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Alan Wiggins, whose baseball career was shortened because of drug use, died of complications from AIDS, a newspaper quoted doctors and family friends as saying.

Wiggins died Jan. 6 at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 32. An unnamed doctor quoted in the Los Angeles Times said he suffered from AIDS for three years and his death from tuberculosis and pneumonia was due to the disease.

Wiggins` family has not publicly acknowledged his cause of death, but the Times reported that one family member and several of the former player`s friends said Wiggins had AIDS.

Wiggins, a former San Diego Padre, was released by the Baltimore Orioles on Sept. 29, 1987 and never played baseball again. He had been suspended by Commissioner Peter Ueberroth a month earlier after reportedly failing a drug test.

After being admitted to Cedars-Sinai on Nov. 29, Wiggins drifted in and out of consciousness during the next month. When he died, he weighed less than 75 pounds, the Times said.

Wiggins` agent, Tony Attanasio, said Wiggins spent an unhappy 2 1/2 years in Baltimore before his career ended.

''It was abysmal,'' Attanasio said. ''Players would stand in an area, Alan would walk over, and guys would (disperse), and leave Alan standing alone. He`d walk over to another group, and they`d leave.

''When he was on the road, he was alone. When he was at home, he was alone. It manifested itself into a lot of disappointment, and a lot of misunderstanding. He was unmercifully depressed.''

According to the Times, Steve Garvey was the only member of the 1984 Padres World Series team to attend a funeral service for Wiggins last Friday.